Muttering something about "daft men and daft kisses," she began walking, but he grabbed her hand, so she didn't get far. He began to lead her toward the salt pool on the far side of the bowl. There was a full moon tonight and he could see his way easily.

She balked again, and said, "Nay. Let us go the other way." The alarm on her face disconcerted Thork for a moment, but then she explained, "I want to . . . um, check on Swively."

"Swively?" He arched his brows.

"The bull."

"Ah!" he said with a grin. "Good name for the old boy. He has been busy, hasn't he?"

He could tell the subject embarra.s.sed her. What an odd contradiction she was! Leader of a band of female pirates, therefore brave, to some foolish extent. Think goats! Brave, certainly, to have left her homeland to survive on her own on a remote, misbegotten island. Brave to be unafraid of him. It took some daring for a Viking man to go a-Viking or a-pirating, but for a Viking woman, it was beyond unbelievable. And yet, at the same time, she appeared guilt-ridden over the situation they found themselves in. And she blushed and trembled around him like an untried virgin.

As they continued walking, she tried to tug her hand away, but he laced their fingers tighter and drew her closer to his side. And he liked it. They pa.s.sed guardswomen along the way, but at a nod from Medana, no weapons were raised.

"Tell me how you came to be here, Geira."

"Medana. My name is Medana."

"Ah, mayhap I was mistaken. Now that I think on it, Geira had a backside the size of a barge and no b.r.e.a.s.t.s to speak of."

Without thinking, she glanced downward. And realized her mistake immediately. Her lashes fluttered wildly.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Do not think to lie again. You do not do it well. I know that you are Geira, and truly, I care not why you killed Haakon's cousin, Jarl Ulfr. I'm sure you had good reason."

Her eyes widened and she tilted her head at him, as if trying to ascertain if he was telling the truth. "You would not alert the king, or my brothers, to my whereabouts? Or attempt to deliver me for punishment?"

Oh, I have punishment aplenty in mind for you, but not for past deeds. What you have done to me and my men merits its own reward. He shook his head slowly. "Nay. 'Tis no concern of mine, though I think you could go back and demand that your side of the story be heard. Why live in such a primitive setting when you could reside in more comfort befitting your high social standing?" At the stiffening of her body, he quickly added, "But that is for you to decide."

Her body relaxed as she accepted his words. "You ask how I come to be here. It all started with my three half brothers, who are the slimiest nithings to walk the earth. Sigurd, Osten, and Vermund. My father was a good man, despite practicing that despicable Norse custom of more danico. My mother, who was my father's second wife, died birthing me, her first and only child. My father grieved my mother's pa.s.sing for years, and in so doing ignored what was happening around him, even on his own estate at Stormgard. As a result, his first wife, Valka, the meanest witch of a woman, took control. It was not so bad whilst my father was alive, but he died when I was ten. After that, Valka scarce hid her hatred for me, and she instilled that hatred in her three sons, as well. They made my life miserable, but I was able to get by until Valka died, may she rest in Muspell as we speak."

Blather, blather, blather. Women were always bemoaning their lot. Geira . . . or Medana . . . was not the first female to suffer a father with many wives and concubines. But not in his family. His mother, a Saxon lady and a Christian besides, would castrate his father with a dull blade if he dared bring another woman to their bed furs. As for irksome siblings or half siblings . . . that, too, was more common than not.

"Geira, Geira, Geira," he said in a patronizing manner that he could tell irritated her, "I saw you at the royal court at Vestfold on occasion. I already mentioned that time when I was fourteen and you eleven. You did not appear abused. In fact, you wore fine clothing and were seated just below the salt during feasts."

"Hah! They treated me like a beloved sister in public, but at home I was little more than a thrall."

He rolled his eyes.

She swatted him on the arm. "I have scars on my back from thrashings that went too far. Especially when the greedy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds got it into their evil heads to wed me to Jarl Ulfr. I was sixteen, a ripe age for the marriage bed, or so my brothers said."

" 'Tis true. The earlier a girl gets into the marriage bed the better," Thork said, just to irritate her more. "A woman needs to learn her place." Beneath a man.

She snarled at him.

And he found her snarling oddly endearing. Or at least satisfying.

"Beneath a man?" she sputtered.

Oops! He hadn't realized that he'd said that aloud.

"Greedy? You say your brothers were greedy. Did Ulfr offer them so much for your hand in marriage?"

"Yea, he did, but more important, I had a legacy of a dower estate pa.s.sed on to me by my mother. A marriage contract was the only way my brothers could get their hands on that."

Thus far, Thork saw nothing unusual or alarming. "That is the way of the world, Medana," he said, choosing to use the name she went by now, even though she was, without a doubt, Geira. "A woman brings a dower to her marriage. It is a husband's right to those goods and estates."

His mother, who still maintained rights to her estates in the Saxon lands, would slap him up one side of his head and down the other for saying thus.

My mother, again!

Medana raised her chin with affront at his dismissal of her complaint. "Did you know Jarl Ulfr?"

He shook his head slowly from side to side. "I do not think I ever met him, though I did hear stories from time to time. Hardly credible stories."

"Credit them! They were true. Freyja, my nursemaid at one time and later my companion, learned from servants in the jarl's household what an evil man he was.

By the runes! She heard from someone who heard from someone. How like a woman!

"Some men enjoy inflicting pain, did you know that?"

Yea, he did. But women tended to exaggerate. Men sometimes needed to wield the whip when laggard servants failed in their duties. Or wives, he supposed. It was not unheard of and not even frowned upon.

Before he could voice that opinion, he mind-whispered, Yea, Mother, I know that is not true of men in our family. Yea, I know you or Aunt Eadyth would whip the man who did such to any underling of yours for small infractions.

"Every girl or woman under the age of fifty on his estate had been raped at least once by Ulfr, if not his vicious men. He had a special chamber with chains and methods of torture that he employed on men and women alike, often for no more reason than a whim. It gave him pleasure to hear screaming. You do not believe me, I can tell."

I do not want to believe you, truth to tell. I do not want to believe there are men so evil. It makes me uncomfortable, especially when women judge all men by the same measure. "I ne'er heard such said of him, but then I have not lived in that part of the Norselands for many years."

"He raped me when I tried to back out of the betrothal, but"-she raised a hand when he started to sympathize with her plight-"but that was not even the worst of it. He laughed at my weeping after the rape, and tried to force me to lick my maiden blood off his ugly manpart. It was too much. Without thinking, I raised a nearby poker and smashed him over the head."

He drew her into his arms, and though she struggled, he held fast. "Dost think anyone would blame you for such? You were only defending yourself." He kissed the top of her hair, an instinctive act, he told himself. It meant nothing. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l! He was supposed to be seducing her, not consoling her. Yea, she had a tragic past, but that did not excuse her present crime.

"You are a fool if you think I would be given fair hearing," she stormed, burrowing her face into his neck, where he was oddly touched to feel the wetness of her tears. He knew without being told that she did not often share her tears. "My brothers were depending on the huge bride price, which included my dower estate, Snow Pines, which is in the far north, too remote and cold for any purpose other than the harvesting of soapstone, which is plentiful there. They would have been the first to cast stones my way. And, remember, the jarl was the king's cousin. I would not have stood a chance."

Without a strong man, or men, at her back to support her, she was probably right. Although men, whether husband or betrothed, could hardly be accused of rape. Could they? "You might be right, although my cousin John's wife, Princess Ingrith of Stoneheim, killed a man one time, without any consequence. Well, actually, it was Ingrith and her four sister princesses who did the killing, and their victim was a Saxon n.o.bleman, not a Viking. Equally as vile as you say Ulfr was, though."

"You made that up!" she accused him, shaking her head at what she must consider a lackwitted attempt to make her feel better.

If she only knew! His family was every bit as outrageous as what he'd just related to her. In fact, Princess Tyra, Ingrith's sister, had once taken Adam, another of his cousins, captive-Is there an irony there?-but he did not think he would mention that to Medana. Nor the fact that the two ended up married.

Once Medana had her emotions under control, they resumed walking.

"I do not know why I'm telling you all this," she said after a period of companionable silence.

"Perchance you hope it will lessen your crime." When she scowled at him, he urged, "Finish, now that you have started."

"I fled Stormgard, where the a.s.sault took place, but I had no specific destination. In shock, I was. I found myself down at the wharves where the small longship was anch.o.r.ed, the one that would have been part of Ulfr's bride-gift to me, which would have no doubt been taken back once the ceremony was over. Little did I know that Freyja and some of the women followed after me, no more wanting to be part of Ulfr's household than I had. And after that came some of Ulfr's much-abused servants. Before I knew it, there were more than a dozen women huddled on the ship, none of us knowing what to do next."

"Surely you would not have me believe that a dozen untrained women rowed a longboat through a fjord and out to sea."

"Of course not." She looked at him as if he was half brained.

He knew the look very well. His mother had perfected . . . aaarrgh!

"It was Solveig, whose father had been a shipwright, who suggested we release the anchor and raise the sails to see where we would go."

That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Something a boyling would say. Like my brother Selik. "Let us jump off the cliff, Thork, and see if we can fly. Why can't we take a longboat down the fjord, Thork? Why, why? If fish can swim the length of the fjord, why can't we?" "Do you have any idea how dangerous an ill-manned longship can be? At best, you could have tipped over the light vessel and drowned," he noted. "At worst, you could have found yourself out to sea in the midst of a storm, and drowned."

"Which would have been a more favorable outcome than staying behind to face what I had done."

Death by stupidity. "A suicide pact then? You women were planning to die? You preferred that to the executioner's blade, a.s.suming that would be the king's verdict."

She shook her head. "We had not thought that far."

Stupidity, for a certainty. "Did you bring coins to bribe guardsmen, or weapons for defense, or food to maintain yourselves whilst in hiding, or extra cloaks to weather the cool night air?"

She stared at him dumbly.

The answer was, obviously not. Some of the old ones claimed that women had smaller brains than men. He was beginning to think they had the right of it.

Except women like my mother, he quickly amended.

"You are smiling. Do you find humor in my story?" Rather than be offended, she seemed rather annoyed with him.

He chucked her under the chin playfully. "I find humor in myself, not you, sweetling. As you have been talking, my mother's words of wisdom keep coming back to haunt me. A rascal of a boy I was."

"A rascal of a man, as well," she observed.

He smiled. She considered him a rascal. He was making progress.

"And stop with the endearments. You cannot sweeten me up with false expressions of fondness."

Maybe not so much progress.

"Finish your tale, Medana," he encouraged as they both sat down on a bench on the far edge of the village near the entrance to an orchard. The air was filled with the pleasant scent of fruit. Possibly plums. Or cherries. "I cannot wait to hear how a band of barmy seawomen landed on this island."

She swatted away his hand that was attempting to loosen the thong on her braid. "Must you sit so close?" She shifted her bottom along the bench. He shifted his bottom right after her. "If you do not behave, I am not finishing my story."

He pretended to wipe the smile off his face and sat up straighter. "I'm listening."

"The G.o.ds were with us that night, although it did not seem so at the time. A storm came up suddenly with strong winds and blinding rain . . . yea, I know, just as you mentioned, except we did not drown, though we no doubt looked like it. Soaked to the bone, we were. It was morning before it cleared, and we 'barmy seawomen,' who'd been clinging together in a huddle mid-ship, discovered that we were indeed asea, bobbing on waves with no land in sight."

His eyes widened more and more as she went on. This was the stuff Bolthor would love to embellish into a saga.

"We had no seafaring skills, of course, though Solveig did know how to manage the rudder. All day the ship took us where it willed with only a slight breeze to guide our sails. By evening, we saw land. The island. And that is the end of the story."

Even in the moonlight, he could see her eyelids fluttering. She lied, or leastways, she did not tell the whole truth.

He made a sweeping motion with one hand to indicate the village. "And was this all here, just waiting for you women to arrive?"

She made a snorting sound of disagreement. "Nothing was here. Everything you see was dug or built by our own endeavors. Suffice it to say, the first two years, there were many times when we might not have survived. And that is all I will say."

For now. "You are to be admired then, like our early settlers are. Or those Nors.e.m.e.n who settle in far-off lands beyond Iceland."

She slanted him a sideways glance, not sure if he was sincere or not.

"Truly. What is not to commend when people, women at that, take the poor lot that life hands them and make something of it." He chuckled, then added, "My mother would place you in high regard. In fact, she would say . . ." His words trailed off as he realized exactly what his mother would say. She would tell him to marry the lady, that she would be a perfect match for him and his wild ways.

Horrified, he stood suddenly. "We will talk more in the morning. I am suddenly in need of my sleep."

But the nagging idea stayed with him. Wouldn't this solve all his problems with his father . . . and mother? Forget about the merchant's daughter in Hedeby. He could marry Lady Medana of Stormgard and leave her here after the wedding. He would have all the benefits of marriage, including his father's goodwill, and none of the disadvantages.

It was definitely his mother's voice in his head now. Laughing hysterically.

Chapter Eight.

A mother's heart is the same, even back then . . .

Lady Alinor read aloud the missive that had just been delivered by Mustaf the Arab. The traveling trader, who sat across the table in Dragonstead's great hall from her and her husband, Tykir, was quaffing down ale like a sailor too long at sea.

We have your son Thork. Send one hundred mancuses of gold to Small Island for his release. Otherwise, we will lop off the loathsome lout's head. Or slice off his too slick tongue and set the loathsome lout out to sea in a leaky boat. Once the ransom is paid, do not stay on the island, but return in one sennight. At that time, you will find the loathsome lout and his seven comrades, safe and unharmed.

The Sea Scourge Alinor was thoroughly confused, as were others listening to her read the letter. But then, her eldest son ofttimes baffled her and enraged his father with his wild and disappointing ways. More so, of late.

First, they'd gotten word from Thork sennights ago that he was on his way home. She'd been ecstatic, making preparations to welcome the prodigal son home. In fact, she'd invited her other sons to come home for the welcome celebration. Well, Selik was already here, being only sixteen and not yet having his own estates, but Starri and Guthrom had come from afar at her urging. Meanwhile, her husband had done naught but scowl at the prospect of Thork finally deigning to honor them with his presence. In Tykir's defense, Alinor had to concede that Thork had done much to hurt his father.

But then ten days ago, some of Thork's comrades had arrived telling an unbelievable tale about Thork having disappeared from the market town of Hedeby, leaving his longships and seamen behind. "I told you, I told you," Tykir had said to her, "it is another of his foolhardy jests." Alinor wasn't so sure; it would be cruel of Thork, if true. Nay! She was worried.

And now this!

Alinor picked up the parchment and read through the words again.

We have your son Thork. Send one hundred mancuses of gold to Small Island for his release. Otherwise, we will lop off the loathsome lout's head. Or slice off his too slick tongue and set the loathsome lout out to sea in a leaky boat. Once the ransom is paid, do not stay on the island, but return in one sennight. At that time, you will find the loathsome lout and his seven comrades, safe and unharmed.

The Sea Scourge "Where did you get this?" Tykir demanded of Mustaf, grabbing the parchment out of Alinor's hands and crumbling it into a wad that he tossed into the rushes.

Mustaf, alarmed at the harshness of Tykir's tone, wiped his mouth and thick mustache with the back of one shaking hand. It would not be the first time in Norse history that the messenger was killed. "On Small Island. A stopping-off place north of Hedeby. A well-known spot for getting fresh water and pa.s.sing of messages," Mustaf rushed to say.

"And my son is being held there?" Alinor pressed a hand to her wildly beating heart. How much worry could one mother withstand? "I do not understand. Who is the Sea Scourge?" she asked.

"I know! I know!" said Starri, their second eldest of four sons, Thork being two years older. He was the only one of her sons who'd inherited her red hair and freckles, although on him they were attractive, his hair a darker red and just a smattering of dots on his sun-darkened skin. With a grin, he sat down next to Mustaf, poured himself a cup of ale from the pottery pitcher, and informed them, "She is the leader of a band of pirates."

"She?" Alinor and Tykir exclaimed at the same time.